In a 2-quart or larger container, combine flour and yeast. Gradually add water to dry ingredients and beat until smooth. Cover loosely; let stand in a warm place until bubbly and sour smelling, about 2 to 4 days. Transfer to a 2-quart or larger container with tight-fitting lid. Refrigerate until needed.

The recipe given essentially "catches" wild yeast and bacteria from wherever it is made. This does work and I've done it a few times. I've also done more exotic original starters that involved crushed grapes, among other things. Problem is, there is just no way to know if said caught yeasties will survive very long over a period of time or what their continued performance will be. And you also don't know what kind of flavor you'll get. That's why people have been saving and nurturing their sourdough starters for generations and passing them onto family and friends. These old starters have stood the test of time. There's an international sourdough starter site that describes old starters from all over the world. Fascinating stuff. Frankly, if you're going to go to the trouble of maintaining a starter, you might as well start out with something proven. No sense reinventing the wheel.

As for making starters low carb, that's probably really tricky since the yeasties live off the starch in flour and LC ingredients have very reduced levels of starch. Some of the carbs in flours are undoubtedly digested by the bacteria, lowering the ultimate carb level of the starter, but nobody knows exactly by how much. In this sense, starter is a lot like yogurt. Only way to really know the carb content is through extensive - and expensive - chemical laboratory analysis.

I have tried several recipes for getting my own Starter going, and was unsatisfied with any. But this one I am using now I really like. It is not as sour as the ones I started with flour and water!! Maybe they had organisms in there that shouldn't have been????
Anyway, the 1847 Oregon Trail Sourdough Starter is a keeper. And I have dried some for back up, just in case I kill this!
Bette

As far as low carb, who knows? I am sure some of the carbs are eaten by the yeasties, but who know how many?

I've been meaning to get a Carl's starter, but I want to cement myself into LC before I start baking again. I tried to grow my own not long ago - it was beautiful, smelled tart and delicious, got foamy and everything... but when I went to make the sponge, I got nothing. I was

I have done some thinking on this. The starter itself should not be high carb if you consider the example of wine. One bottle of wine contains approximately 2.6 lbs of grapes. That would make the carb load 468 grams. However we know that there only remain around 30g of carbs in a bottle. Hence we know how much the beasties eat. Essentially we are left with 7 % of the original carb count.

Two problems with this. Wine ferments on average for 2 weeks. This starter takes 4 days
Second, we cannot automatically assume that the uptake of carbohydrates is the same with flour as with grapejuice.}

If I was to make this I would assume 20% of carbs remaining to be on the safe side. Additionally I would leave it close to goal or the maintenance phase.

But what to do with the starter afterwards ? I mean what is low carb that you can leaven witrh sourdough.

Crumpets! Take a cup of the soured starter, right out of the fridge (don't feed it), sprinkle over the surface 1 teaspoon of sugar (use real sugar) and 1/2 teaspoon each salt and baking soda. Whisk these in thoroughly and it should start to bubble up.

If you've got crumpet rings (Or cleaned tuna cans) heat them on an oiled griddle (or non stick) and pour the batter in. Or, you can just make pancakes with it. I love making the pancakes and sprinkling them with a few blueberries and a little cinnamon.

i landed on this page in my attempts to find out how many carbs would be in chickpea flour starter. i've been making chikpea flour starter and using it as a flatbread (aka farinata or socca.) i am trying to find out what the heck would be the carb count of it! i don't strictly count carbs, but i limit them, and i'd like to have an idea.